Optimizing dynamical changes of structural balance in signed network based on memetic algorithm

In dynamical evolution of structural balance, unbalanced signed networks evolve to structurally balanced ones. In this paper, we compute the least number of sign changes in the evolution of structural balance. It is suggested that there be a certain bias towards flipping positive or flipping negative signs. The number of flipped signs is quantified by an objective function. Moreover, a memetic algorithm is proposed to optimize the objective function. Experiments show that our algorithm is efficient and effective to optimize dynamical evolution of structural balance. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.